Shoulding Ourselves

0:08  
Welcome to the executive coach for moms podcast where we support women who are attempting to find balance and joy, while simultaneously leading people at work. And at home. I'm your host Leanna Lasky, McGrath, former tech exec turned full time mom, recovering perfectionist and workaholic, and certified executive coach. 

0:30  
Hi, everyone, Welcome back to week three of 2024. As you probably know, if you've been listening, I am in the middle of my January Reset group coaching program. And it has been so amazing to see all these women come together and share about what they're working on and challenges and for me to share some coaching tools with them. And I wanted today to talk about one of the topics that came up in our conversation last week that I really think everyone can relate to. And after our call, I spent some time reflecting on it and writing about it. And so I want to share what I have come up with and my thoughts about this. 

1:21  
And the idea is about shoulding ourselves. So believing that we should be a different way that someone else should be a different way that a situation should be a different way, some kind of any place where we apply the word should. So there are lots of ways that this shows up, like what we should do with our lives, how we should act in certain situations, how we should be as a leader, how we should be as a parent, how someone else should be a certain way. But basically, the premise is that it's different from what actually is or the way you actually are the way they actually are. And I'm sure we've all experienced these, it's normal human experience. But I'm going to focus on a specific application of should, that I think is very common for high achieving women with ridiculously high expectations of ourselves. And that is the idea that I should be better at this or I should already know how to do something I shouldn't need training, support, education or help I should already be there. 

2:36  
I think that we hold this belief, whether consciously or subconsciously, but because we expect so much of ourselves. It's so common for us to have this thought. And I think it's especially common with anything to do with like self help and self development thought work. I see it all the time in my clients, and then myself when I started this work, it's like not only are we not where we want to be, and so we're working on that. But on top of that, we're piling on shame, because we shouldn't be there, we believe that we should be able to figure this out on our own. 

3:17  
So I really started thinking about why do we do this? Why is this so common for us high achieving women? So I think first of all, we have very high expectations of ourselves often unrealistic. I mean, logically, we know it's unrealistic to believe that we should be perfect at everything. And yet, when we're in this situation, we still expect it of ourselves, we know that it's not possible logically. And also we have like some deeply rooted belief that it should be possible for us, we should be able to do it anyway. I think a lot of that has to do with the societal expectations of women kind of that image of Superwoman, that we are all striving for and expecting of ourselves, that we're just supposed to be good at everything. 

4:08  
I think another reason why we do this is that messing up publicly is really scary for us. Because when we put so much of our self worth in being well respected and well regarded and looking competent, it feels like a threat to that reputation that we've built, if we're going to fail publicly, and so it's like if we don't know how to do something, or we're not immediately really good at something, then we start to have those feelings of worry about, oh my gosh, what if I look stupid in front of other people? What if I make a fool of myself? And so generally, I think we would rather fail in private it in rather do our work in private then for anyone to see us kind of falling on our face or failing, even if we're failing forward. 

5:10  
And then finally, I think that should has roots in comparison and assumptions. So assumptions about the way things are supposed to be, and comparison about that we have this belief that maybe other people can do something that we can't, we might see a glimpse of someone else doing something on social media and assume oh my gosh, like, I can't believe I'm not doing that I'm not able to do that I should be able to do that I should be doing that too. 

5:42  
And then, what are the consequences of this? I kind of want to talk through like, what are the outcomes or consequences of us having this belief all the time, that we should be somewhere than we're not there yet? I think the first one is obvious that we just kind of feel like crap about ourselves, we feel bad about ourselves that we are not where we expect ourselves to be. And I think often there's this false, I'm gonna call it a thought error. Where we believe that that motivates us, we believe that it motivates us to feel bad about ourselves. It's kind of like that concept of tough love or being hard on ourselves. And we believe that that's going to motivate us and drive us to improvement. And it's possible certainly to improve that way. I think, though, often it holds us back, I think that is more often, the outcome there because we have so much resistance that we have to work through. Before we can really make the improvement, we just like make it harder, if it's like we're adding mud on the ground that we have to trek through, rather than just having like a clear path and being able to get there to wherever it is, wherever there is that we believe we should be. So a lot of times, we never actually start because we're like, oh, I should already be able to do that. And then we're like too embarrassed to actually learn how to do it, our ego kind of comes up and is like, you should already know that. So therefore, we just don't do it, we just don't start, we kind of get busy with something else. Because there are so many things that we can get busy with in our lives. Or the other option is that if it's something that we have to do, or that we're committed to doing, then we really kind of shame our way to the goal, we're just like I said, kind of trudging through that mud to get there. And so on top of learning it, we're just being really hard on ourselves along the way. 

7:54  
And also trying to rush ourselves to get there as fast as possible, since we believe we should be there already. And what that means is that we don't actually get to experience or enjoy the process of learning of development of growth, of expanding ourselves and our skill sets that whole process of getting there, we're just pushing through it, we're just trying to get there as fast as possible. And it means like, we don't actually get to enjoy it. And if you think about it, a lot more of our life is spent in processes than in outcomes. It's in the working towards something or getting there getting to the goal, we spend way more of our precious time on this earth in those processes than we do being at the goal. And so if we think about how we want to spend our time on this earth, like, is it pushing through shaming ourselves not enjoying it? Or do we want to find some fulfillment from it, find some enjoyment from it. I mean, that's totally up to us. But I think a lot of times, it's so unconscious. And we don't even realize that we're doing it. And so that's why I really want to kind of bring some awareness and consciousness to it today, to think about, is that how we want to spend our time do we want to spend a large portion of our life working toward things and pushing ourselves so hard that we aren't enjoying it and shaming ourselves all along the way. 

9:30  
And I think one of the other consequences of those that we kind of erode our relationship with ourselves, our confidence in ourselves or trust in ourselves with all of the shaming that we do all of the constant reminding ourselves like I should be there. I can't believe like, this feels so remedial or I can't believe I don't know this already. I should know this. I should already be able to do this. And so all those thoughts are just breaking down our confidence in ourselves and our trust. Send ourselves. 

10:00  
So what can we do about it? I want to make sure that there's some hope and positivity here as well! So a few things that we can do about it. One is inviting in curiosity. I talk a lot about curiosity, because I think it's the key to so many things. Should is inherently a judgment. It's looking at a situation and deciding the way it should be the way we should be in that situation. And curiosity is the opposite of judgment. Curiosity is looking at a situation or ourselves, and thinking, Hmm, what is there to learn here? And just being genuinely open and curious about it? I think a really good question to ask ourselves, whenever we hear ourselves say should is, why do I believe that? Why do I believe that I should be there already. Right? So anytime that there's a judgement, we have the opportunity to take breath, step back and invite curiosity. I think that a lot of times we think, Oh, well, if there's judgment, then there can't be curiosity, I think that there's room for both. I think the reality is that judgment is usually our first go to, and that's okay. And then we have the opportunity to consciously invite curiosity and start to build that muscle of having curiosity come to the table more often. And then it'll start happening more naturally. 

11:41  
I think I talk a lot about acceptance versus resistance. And should is a very big indicator that there's resistance, because acceptance means that we look at a situation, we look at ourselves in a situation and we say, this is where I am right now. And I'm going to accept myself for where I am today, I'm gonna accept the circumstances that this is where I am that I know this, and I don't know this. And that's acceptance, it's looking around at a situation and accepting it as is resistance is when we start to pile on all the shoulds, it should be different, I should be different, I should be better. And so I think this is an opportunity to invite some of that acceptance, and recognizing that this is where I am today. And that that's okay. For those of you with little ones who have seen Frozen to 9000 times as I have, one of the concepts that I love in that movie, is how they talk about the next right thing, when you can't see too far forward, that one should focus on the next right thing. And I think that that is applicable here. Because it's like we focus on where we are right now. And what's the next right thing to do, we don't need to focus on way on in the future of where we should be, and then get down on ourselves for not being there yet, we have the opportunity to look at here's where I am today. And here's the next step to get to where I want to be. 

13:24  
And I think another thing that we can do about this is reframe. So I talked before about how showed has its roots in comparison assumptions and judgment. And so I'll offer this thought there are almost 8 billion people in the world. And so the reality is that in every aspect, everything like fitness, financial, career, parenting, relationships, all the different areas of our lives, some people are going to be ahead of us and some people are going to be behind us in terms of growth and development. It's just the reality. And some people who are older than us are going to be ahead of us and people who are older than us are going to be behind us in some areas, some people are who are younger than us are going to be ahead of us and behind us in some areas. And so a lot of times when I start recognizing that my should is coming from a perceived external expectation, I love to think about the fact that, yeah, maybe that person's ahead of me on the knowledge of this one thing, and I'm probably ahead of them on the knowledge of another thing. It's just the reality, everyone that we meet everyone that we come into contact with. Sometimes they're going to know about some things that I don't know about, and I'm gonna know about some things that they don't know about. It's just the reality. It's just that obviously we have a very small sample size since we don't interact with a billion people on a regular basis. And so a lot of times we base our comparisons just on those that we see in our immediate social circles and on social media. 

15:06  
Another reframe opportunity actually came from the group, one of our members offered the thought that instead of, I should be able to, I'm trying, or I will be able to. And I think reframing the language that we're using to ourselves telling ourselves all the time, we should be doing something or we should be good at something. If we are able to shift that a bit too. I'm working on that right now, or I'm trying to or I know that I will be able to do that. It just supports us a little bit more, right? It gives us more positive reinforcement that we're working in the right direction. Rather than that we are wrong. And there's something wrong with us that we're not there yet. 

15:55  
And then finally, finding purpose and enjoyment in the process, not just the outcome, not believing that we have to get to a certain place in order to start being happy or enjoying our lives. Understanding that this is our time, this is our life. And so obviously, we're not going to enjoy every second of our lives. But we also don't have to suffer and shame our way through it either. And we have the opportunity to invite some enjoyment into the process of learning something, even if we at first believe we should be there. It's a great opportunity to say, Okay, I'm not there yet. And now I get to learn this new thing. And I'm excited for that process. 

16:43  
So I think the very first step of any process is always awareness. So I would highly recommend starting to write down anytime you notice yourself shoulding yourself. Start noticing all the places where your brain is telling you that you should be something else or you should be good at something or something about you should be different. And start start to get curious why ask yourself why Why should I reframe wherever possible. And also maybe, in addition to writing it down, maybe talk about it with a trusted friend, partner, coach or therapist. I hope that what I've offered here today will help you to maybe spend a little bit less time in should add a little bit more time in where you are, and to enjoy the journey of wherever you're going. Thanks so much everybody have a great week!

17:38  
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Transcribed by https://otter.ai